Michael Snowden (British, born 1930)

Michael Snowden is a sculptor of figures and portraits in bronze. He trained as an art teacher before studying sculpture under Karel Vogel at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London. From 1964 until 1995 he was a lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art. He is a professional member of the Society of Scottish Artists, an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1996 was elected to the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts. He has completed many public commissions, including those for the new towns of Livingston and Cumbernauld, for Edinburgh Park, and for the town of Montrose. He has taken part in solo and group exhibitions, and his work is in numerous private collections in Britain and abroad.

Commission

When an individual or organisation employs an artist to execute a particular project, the process and the resulting work are termed a ‘commission’.

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) was formed in Edinburgh in 1826 by Scottish artists who felt alienated by what they perceived as the elitism of the Royal Institution and its management of contemporary art exhibitions. In 1835, the RSA secured exhibition rights in the Royal Institution building, which had been erected on The Mound by the Board of Manufactures in 1826. The RSA and the Board frequently argued over responsibilities for advanced art education. From 1859, the RSA shared the premises of the new National Gallery of Scotland under the Board’s custody. In 1910, after transferring most of its art collections to the Gallery, the RSA gained exclusive tenancy of the former Royal Institution building, where it continues to hold large-scale annual exhibitions.